Philanthropic Responsibility of Companies

This assignment delves into the concept of philanthropic responsibility in businesses, highlighting the importance of corporate giving, traditional corporate philanthropy, and strategic philanthropy. Real-life examples from Medtronic and PepsiCo illustrate the impact of corporate philanthropy on communities, addressing issues such as healthcare access, nutrition, and social welfare.

Philanthropic responsibility
Last but not least, as discussed earlier, companies has various responsibility which is
to serve for different purposes. If a company is able to achieve all the responsibilities, then
the company can start achieving the philanthropic responsibility which generally is to serve
the community at large. Philanthropic responsibility is also known as the voluntary
responsibility by the corporation where the corporation will voluntarily engage itself in social
initiatives. This responsibility is not made compulsory by any written law but it is the
voluntary act of the corporation itself to meet the social needs and expectations of the public
towards the corporation.
In respect of the philanthropic responsibility, a corporation which including the
involvement of its employees and shareholders will usually participate in the charitable
donation by donating services to community, engaging in projects to promote the general
welfare of the society, launching any programmes to aid environment and so on.1 It is
important to note that one of the major issues that took place in the society is that there are a
large group of people who needed help but could not get one. So such charitable contribution
by the corporation is indeed necessary to alleviate the problem.
According to Jane Wales, the founder of the Global Philanthropy Forum and Vice
President of Philanthropy and Society at the Aspen Institute, there are two different types of
philanthropy namely traditional corporate philanthropy and strategic philanthropy. In
traditional corporate philanthropy, it only involves the promotion of welfare of the public via
charitable donations; while in strategic philanthropy, it promotes the public welfare and at the
same time also fulfils the marketing goals of the company.2
While discussing on philanthropic responsibility, we will be looking at instances of
company which engages in corporate philanthropy. One of the notable examples is Medtronic
Public Limited Company which is the world’s largest medical device company. Medtronic
gets involved in traditional corporate philanthropy which includes serving donations by
providing affordable and quality healthcare to the underserved communities and expand the
healthcare access as well as improve the health facilities. Besides, Medtronic also engage in
the program known as volunteer grant to encourage Medtronic’s generous employees to
1 Georgeta Grogore, 'Ethical and Philanthropic Responsibilities in Practice' [2010] 10(3)
Annals of University Petrosani, Economics 170-171.
2 National academies of sciences, engineering, and medicine, Exploring Shared Value in
Global Health and Safety: Workshop Summary (The National Academies Press 2016).

donate time, skills, and resources to the communities. For example, the employees will
contribute their time in working at a charity and wages will be paid by Medtronic to the
charity. Medtronic also enable and encourage its patients with chronic disease to make use of
their extra life to help others who are in need.
Apart from that, Medtronic also engage in strategic philanthropy where they invest in
a project called HealthRise which enable them to partner up with various local governments,
particularly on India, Brazil, United States and South Africa. The purpose of this is to address
barriers in the chronic management of hypertension and diabetes in those countries.
HealthRise also developed on the area of maternal child health, tuberculosis, HIV and
malaria, especially outside the United States. Within the United States, HealthRise seeks to
connect what might be happening in a health care system with what is happening in the
community.3
Hence, as can be seen that it is indeed a win-win situation for both the corporate and
the communities where the corporate gets to achieve their goals and at the same time
communities also get the help from the corporate.
Furthermore, there are also some examples of corporate philanthropy which are worth
mentioning. PepsiCo, a multinational food, snack and beverage corporation engages in
various projects to ensure healthy lifestyles, sufficient nutrition and access to clean water of
the communities. In should be noted that the issue of childhood hunger and poor nutrition
suffered by children are still endemic and some of them even starve to die. The children are
also struggling to get the healthy food they need during summer. So PepsiCo has launched a
“Food for Good” project for the purpose of improving access to healthy and nutritious food in
underserved communities. Even though prior to this project, a program called Summer Food
Service Program (SFSP) launched by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA)
has provided funds to support the summer meals for the kids, but yet less than 10 per cent of
eligible kids get access to these meals. This is due to the inaccessible transport system in the
rural area which has prevented them from reaching the summer food service sites that are
located at schools, parks or other community sites.
Therefore, PepsiCo has introduced “Food for Good” project in year 2009 to provide a
mobile meal program that can bring nutritious and healthy food directly to the kids’ house or
3 Medtronic, 'Medtronic
Philanthropy' (Medtroniccom) <http://www.medtronic.com/ir-en/corporate-citizenship-4/
philanthropy-programmes.html> accessed 20 August 2017

apartment. PepsiCo has worked together with the local community and the federal as well as
the state government agencies to create the largest summer mobile meal program for the
children. This project has served over 1.6 million free and healthy meals to the underserved
children across Chicago, Houston and Dallas.4 This has thus addressed the transportation
issue that hinder the kids to get the necessary nutrition they need and little by little it helps to
reduce the world hunger.
In short, as can be seen that philanthropic responsibility undertook by the corporate
has undeniably played an important role in redressing the chronic community issues that
needed a serious attention. Through corporate philanthropy, communities get helps from the
corporation via charity program. Hence, such practice of benefiting the public welfare shall
continue to exist for a better and healthy society.
4 Amy Chen, 'Food for
Good' (Changemakers)<https://www.changemakers.com/intrapreneurs/entries/food-
good-pepsico> accessed 20 August 2017

Bibliography
1. Amy Chen, 'Food for
Good' (Changemakers)<https://www.changemakers.com/intrapreneurs/entries/food-
good-pepsico> accessed 20 August 2017
2. Georgeta Grogore, 'Ethical and Philanthropic Responsibilities in Practice' [2010]
10(3) Annals of University Petrosani, Economics 170-171.
3. Medtronic, 'Medtronic Philanthropy' (Medtroniccom) <http://www.medtronic.com/ir-
en/corporate-citizenship-4/philanthropy-programmes.html> accessed 20 August 2017
4. National academies of sciences, engineering, and medicine, Exploring Shared Value
in Global Health and Safety: Workshop Summary (The National Academies
Press 2016).